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I love Asia. I love it so much that I quit my job to travel from Nepal to Japan for 18 months.
Here's a collection of my best travel images of Asia. In my Gallery Archive I have hundreds of images of Nepal, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Japan.

During my 18 month exploration of Asia I had the chance of taking hundreds of portraits of Asian people, both in the countryside and in the cities.
This collection includes some of my best portraits taken during my journey through Asia, from Nepal to Japan.

I stayed for three days with an indigenous family in Mentawai, a remote archipelago off the coast of Sumatra (Indonesia). The family was composed of a couple and their four youngest children (several had already married and lived by themselves).
Mentawai people live in single houses apart from neighbors, so each household has sole access to the necessary jungle area of which they live off (they don't grow anything and only raise chickens and pigs). Children don't go to school, marry young and live a very primitive life.
During my stay I was shown how to make and apply poison to the arrows used for hunting, how to make the loincloth Mentawai men wear, and how to fish in the river.

While traveling through Myanmar I hired a guide to take me for a three-day hike from the town of Kalaw to Inle Lake.
The hike was a wonderful experience, giving me the chance of observing countryside living and visiting several villages of different local tribes, specifically the Palaung, the Pao and the Danu.
There was no machinery at all, giving an idea of the hard-working conditions countryside living entails in Myanmar.
Last night we stayed at a local small Buddhist monastery, situated on a hill amongst bamboo trees.

Kha Khat Wain Kyaung, located in the city of Bago, is one of the largest Buddhist monasteries in Myanmar (Burma). Daily lunch ceremony is open to visitors.
I was allowed to wander freely through the monastery photographing volunteers cooking lunch in the kitchen, monks serving tea and lunch in the dining room, and the monks coming out of their rooms and sitting down to eat.
Many Thai tourists arrived in time to donate some sweets and snacks to the monks, who in silence took the alms, served themselves rice in their bowls before entering the dinning room where the curry, tea and water were already served on the low tables around which they sat on the floor to eat their lunch, their last meal for the remaining of the day.

Inle Lake is located in Central Myanmar and it has an approximate area of 115km2. Although the main activity on the lake is fishing, there also are floating tomatoes gardens and some villages.
The lake area has diminished by approximately 30% due to environmental pressures from population growth and tourism. Fishing stock is also collapsing rapidly as chemicals used to grow tomatoes get into the water damaging livestock.

While visiting Kyoto on a bike, I stopped to visit the Heian Shrine, one of the main Shintoist temples in Kyoto.
As I walked the huge esplanade leading to the shrine building, I saw a geisha walking towards the entrance with those short steps her tight kimono imposed on her legs. She was accompanied by a woman dressed conventionally.
They first entered the shrine and then went to the wonderful temple garden. I asked if I could take some pictures of such a seclusive person and they allowed me to do so with the typical Japanese politeness.
Her kimono, makeup and hair style meant that she was actually a maiko, a geisha apprentice. She never looked into the camera, and all her moves were extremely smooth as she didn't want to disturb the air around her.

Every morning at dawn Luang Prabang (Laos) Buddhist monks go out in their orange robes to gather alms given by pilgrims in the city streets, mostly by Thai visitors who kneel on the floor as they hand monks with various food, from sticky rice to sweets and snacks. Some locals cook rice early in the morning and sell it to tourists so they can also participate in the rite.
Monks don't say a word and never reject whatever is offered to them. They simply collect in their bowls the alms and go back to their monasteries to carry on with their daily simple lives.

Near the city of Can Tho (Vietnam), the largest city in the Mekong River Delta, there are several floating markets where every early morning farmers sell their fruits and vegetables.
Once absolutely vital for those living around the Mekong Delta, economic development has reduced significantly their importance. Despite this decline, they are still quite active for a couple of hours after dawn.

The temples of Angkor, near the Cambodian city of Siem Reap, are the legacy of the great Khmer Empire, who ruled current Cambodia and Laos, plus parts of Thailand and Vietnam from the 9th century to the 15th.
It takes several days to see them all. Most visitors concentrate on the stars of the vast complex: Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon and Ta Phrom.

During the atrocious years the Khmer Rouge forced their terror on Cambodia, a Phnom Penh school was turned into their main prison and torture center.
Then known as S-21, from 1975 to 1979 some 20,000 prisoners went through their doors. Only 7 survived; the rest died there or were murdered nearby in The Killing Fields.
Some classrooms were used for torture, others as dormitories, or cells were built inside them to accommodate the prisoners.
S-21 is now The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Vanakbara is a small fishing village on the western tip of Diu, an island on the West coast of India and former Portuguese colony.
I rode a bike from the town of Diu in the afternoon. When I got to Vanakbara, fishing boats were getting ready to go fishing in the evening.
Colorful motorbikes pulling a cart full of ice blocks arrived to the dock. Fishermen chopped the ice blocks with axes or with huge ice grinding machines.
Due to their Portuguese ancestors, many people in Diu don't look Indian but from the Iberian peninsula.

I spent one morning in old Kolkata (India) shooting images from the hip around the Nakhoda Mosque, full of street life, shops, street barbers, food stalls, rickshaws, yellow cabs and workers waiting to be hired for the day.

West of the city of Jaisalmer (Rajasthan, India), between the city and the Pakistani border, lies the Thar desert.
Popular amongst tourists visiting the Golden City (as Jaisalmer is known due to its imposing sand fort) is to do a desert safari on top of a camel and visit several small villages.

There is no country as colorful as India. Its streets are a mosaic of vivid colors catching your eyes constantly.
Starting with Indian women combining oranges, yellows, reds and greens in their saris, following with Rajasthani men's turbans, to cars, trucks and food stalls, lively colors inundate Indian streets.

The Annapurna Circuit Trek is one of the most beautiful and popular treks in the world.
I completed the whole circuit from Besisahar to Pokhara, around 250km, in 15 days with a guide and a porter. The highlight is going through Thorung La, the highest pass in the world at 5,416m of altitude.
Other highlights include the beautiful small buddhist villages of Tibetan culture (like Marpha or Manang) and the splendorous peaks that surround the whole trek (Annapurna I-IV, Manaslu, Dhaulagiri, Gangapurna, Tilicho and Machhapuchhre)